Behind the White Tomb
by Coriande
Summary: Oneshot. How does the death of someone great affect the sidekicks? Melancholy fluff as Ron goes down to say goodbye to Dumbledore one last time. RHr


**Disclaimer: There is nothing here of mine. (J/K Rowling has stolen my imagination and my screenname.)**

Ron Weasley stood at the dormitory window looking out over the twilit grounds of Hogwarts and feeling. The gently sloping lawn looked so innocuously peaceful in the dusk, the dark cube that was Hagrid's cabin silhouetted against the green grass. There was no smoke coming from the chimney tonight though; Hagrid and Madame Maxine were still up in Dumbled– in the office, trying to sort out what would become of the students… of the teachers… of Hogwarts. Ron didn't know what would happen next year, but he did know that whatever decision the professors made tonight wouldn't affect him. He was going with Harry, no questions asked. He recalled Hermione's words that afternoon:

" _You said to us once before that there was time to turn back if we wanted to. We've had time, haven't we?"_

She had expressed his feelings perfectly, as she so often did. For a moment, his thoughts departed the dark path at Harry's feet and wandered to his relationship with his other best friend. The past year had hardly been what Ron had been hoping for in terms of Hermione. He had been rejected – although admittedly, his own behaviour had not been that of a perfect gentleman – humiliated, and… _canaried_ at the hands of his bossy friend over the past ten months. You'd have to be mental to love someone like Hermione, he thought. Good thing a little nuttiness runs in the family.

The family. Bill and Fleur's wedding. Harry had seemed so surprised that something so ordinary as a wedding could still be going on in the midst of what had happened. Ron had never been an excellent judge of emotions, but it wasn't hard to understand Harry's loss of interest in the world around him. He had really lost everything – first his parents, then successively a classmate, a godfather and his greatest hero. Harry had, of course, always been a little more serious than him, but in the past two years, it seemed as though his responsibilities were physically weighing him down. If the double blow of Snape's trechery and Dumbledore's death was affecting…the _sidekick_ this way, he could only imagine what it was doing to his best friend. Ron tried to imagine his own horror exponentially multiplied, but his imagination failed him.

_I need to get out of here_. Looking back out the window, he saw the late afternoon light disappear behind the block he knew to be the great white tomb which had been created, almost called into being, to house Hogwarts' greatest headmaster. I'll go down and say goodbye, he thought. One more time.

The common room was empty and felt cold, although a fire was crackling in the grate as always. Dobby and Winky must have been here in the commotion, though Ron. Thinking of the house elves reminded him of Hermione; then again, almost everything did these days. Brandishing a somewhat dubiously shaped knit sock in his face, screeching (he could never euphemise her screeching), "Do you realize that it's lazy people like you who enable this kind of treatment to continue? Normally, I find the wizarding world to be more advanced than the Muggle one, but we – I mean they - they outlawed this sort of thing decades ago!" And she was dead on, he thought as he clambered through the portrait hole. As always, Hermione had the right end of the stick. "How do you put up with that sort of thing?" Dean had asked in the boys' dormitory after that particular upset. "Don't you, I don't know, get tired of it?" – after which he promptly fell asleep. His question, however, lodged itself in Ron's head and prodded him. Do I get tired of it? Do I wish she'd stop? Now, as he bumped into a second-year Ravenclaw (Sorry, mate) he knew the answer, and it was just what he had always known it would be.

With his decision finally made, Ron's mind felt easier as he made his way down towards the lake. The grass was wet, and his trainers squished against the muddy ground. A somber light filtered past the Forbidden Forest and illuminated the tomb with an otherworldly glow. As Ron paused in front of it, he heard a sniffle from the side of the marble block facing the forest.

"Er – hello?"

More repressed sobs from behind the tomb. Ron walked around the corner and saw, with a sinking heart, a absolute mountain of brown hair. It had started to rain as he had watched at the window, and the back and hem of Hermione's robes had dulled to dark brown. She looked up at Ron with swollen eyes and a runny nose.

"Benedict…."

"Eh?" Ron replied. Did she not know who he was? "I'm Ron, remember? Come on, Hermione."

She shook her head and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "Of course, ... nevermind." She looked up at him, hair soaked and cheeks red. "Ron, he's _gone_. What are we going to do?"

"What are we going to do?'

Ron sat down beside her and took her hand.

"We are going to go with Harry. You… are going to stay with me."

Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world.

**A.N.: The Benedict thing won't be picked up on if you haven't read or seen _Much Ado About Nothing._ I think Hermione must have read some Shakespeare.**

**Thank you for reading! Comments always appreciated.**


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